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  The Mesa 3D Graphics Library
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<h1>Releasing Process</h1>

<ul>
<li><a href="#overview">Overview</a>
<li><a href="#schedule">Release schedule</a>
<li><a href="#pickntest">Cherry-pick and test</a>
<li><a href="#stagingbranch">Staging branch</a>
<li><a href="#branch">Making a branchpoint</a>
<li><a href="#prerelease">Pre-release announcement</a>
<li><a href="#release">Making a new release</a>
<li><a href="#announce">Announce the release</a>
<li><a href="#gitlab">Update Gitlab Issues</a>
</ul>


<h2 id="overview">Overview</h2>

<p>
This document uses the convention X.Y.Z for the release number with X.Y being
the stable branch name.
</p>

<p>
Mesa provides feature and bugfix releases. Former use zero as patch version (Z),
while the latter have a non-zero one.
</p>

<p>
For example:
</p>
<pre>
Mesa 10.1.0 - 10.1 branch, feature
Mesa 10.1.4 - 10.1 branch, bugfix
Mesa 12.0.0 - 12.0 branch, feature
Mesa 12.0.2 - 12.0 branch, bugfix
</pre>


<h2 id="schedule">Release schedule</h2>

<p>
Releases should happen on Wednesdays. Delays can occur although those
should be kept to a minimum.
</p>

<p>
See our <a href="release-calendar.html" target="_parent">calendar</a>
for information about how the release schedule is planned, and the
date and other details for individual releases.
</p>

<h2>Feature releases</h2>
<ul>
<li>Available approximately every three months.
<li>Initial timeplan available 2-4 weeks before the planned branchpoint (rc1)
on the mesa-announce@ mailing list.
<li>Typically, the final release will happen after 4
candidates. Additional ones may be needed in order to resolve blocking
regressions, though.
<li>A <a href="#prerelease">pre-release</a> announcement should be available
approximately 24 hours before the final (non-rc) release.
</ul>

<h2>Stable releases</h2>
<ul>
<li>Normally available once every two weeks.
<li>Only the latest branch has releases. See note below.
<li>A <a href="#prerelease">pre-release</a> announcement should be available
approximately 48 hours before the actual release.
</ul>

<p>
Note: There is one or two releases overlap when changing branches. For example:
</p>

<p>
The final release from the 12.0 series Mesa 12.0.5 will be out around the same
time (or shortly after) 13.0.1 is out.
</p>

<p>
This also involves that, as a final release may be delayed due to the
need of additional candidates to solve some blocking regression(s),
the release manager might have to update
the <a href="release-calendar.html" target="_parent">calendar</a> with
additional bug fix releases of the current stable branch.
</p>


<h2 id="pickntest">Cherry-picking and testing</h2>

<p>
Commits nominated for the active branch are picked as based on the
<a href="submittingpatches.html#criteria" target="_parent">criteria</a> as
described in the same section.
</p>

<p>
Nomination happens in the mesa-stable@ mailing list. However,
maintainer is responsible of checking for forgotten candidates in the
master branch. This is achieved by a combination of ad-hoc scripts and
a casual search for terms such as regression, fix, broken and similar.
</p>

<p>
Maintainer is also responsible for testing in various possible permutations of
the meson and scons build.
</p>

<h2>Cherry-picking and build/check testing</h2>

<p>Done continuously up-to the <a href="#prerelease">pre-release</a> announcement.</p>

<p>
Developers can request, <em>as an exception</em>, patches to be applied up-to
the last one hour before the actual release. This is made <strong>only</strong>
with explicit permission/request, and the patch <strong>must</strong> be very
well contained. Thus it cannot affect more than one driver/subsystem.
</p>

<p>Following developers have requested permanent exception</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Ilia Mirkin</em>
<li><em>AMD team</em>
</ul>

<p>The following must pass:</p>
<ul>
<li>meson test, scons and scons check
<li>Testing with different version of system components - LLVM and others is also
performed where possible.
<li>As a general rule, testing with various combinations of configure
switches, depending on the specific patchset.
</ul>

<p>
These are achieved by combination of <a href="basictesting">local testing</a>,
which includes mingw-w64 cross compilation and AppVeyor plus Travis-CI, the
latter two as part of their Github integration.
</p>

<p>
For Windows related changes, the main contact point is Brian
Paul. Jose Fonseca can also help as a fallback contact.
</p>

<p>
For Android related changes, the main contact is Tapani
P&auml;lli. Mauro Rossi is collaborating with android-x86 and may
provide feedback about the build status in that project.
</p>

<p>
For MacOSX related changes, Jeremy Huddleston Sequoia is currently a
good contact point.
</p>

<p>
<strong>Note:</strong> If a patch in the current queue needs any additional
fix(es), then they should be squashed together. The commit messages and the
&quot;<code>cherry picked from</code>&quot;-tags must be preserved.
</p>

<p>
This should be noted in the <a href="#prerelease">pre-announce</a> email.
</p>

<pre>
git show b10859ec41d09c57663a258f43fe57c12332698e

commit b10859ec41d09c57663a258f43fe57c12332698e
Author: Jonas Pfeil &lt;pfeiljonas@gmx.de&gt;
Date:   Wed Mar 1 18:11:10 2017 +0100

    ralloc: Make sure ralloc() allocations match malloc()'s alignment.

    The header of ralloc needs to be aligned, because the compiler assumes
    ...

    (cherry picked from commit cd2b55e536dc806f9358f71db438dd9c246cdb14)

    Squashed with commit:

    ralloc: don't leave out the alignment factor

    Experimentation shows that without alignment factor gcc and clang choose
    ...

    (cherry picked from commit ff494fe999510ea40e3ed5827e7818550b6de126)
</pre>

<h2>Regression/functionality testing</h2>

<p>
Less often (once or twice), shortly before the pre-release announcement.
Ensure that testing is redone if Intel devs have requested an exception, as per above.
</p>

<ul>
<li><em>no regressions should be observed for Piglit/dEQP/CTS/Vulkan on Intel platforms</em>
<li><em>no regressions should be observed for Piglit using the swrast, softpipe
and llvmpipe drivers</em>
</ul>

<p>
Currently testing is performed courtesy of the Intel OTC team and their Jenkins CI setup. Check with the Intel team over IRC how to get things setup.
</p>

<p>
Installing the built driver from the pre-announced RC branch in the
system and making some every day's use until the release may be a good
idea too.
</p>

<h2 id="stagingbranch">Staging branch</h2>

<p>
A live branch, which contains the currently merge/rejected patches is available
in the main repository under <code>staging/X.Y</code>. For example:
</p>
<pre>
staging/18.1 - WIP branch for the 18.1 series
staging/18.2 - WIP branch for the 18.2 series
</pre>

<p>
Notes:
</p>
<ul>
<li>People are encouraged to test the staging branch and report regressions.</li>
<li>The branch history is not stable and it <strong>will</strong> be rebased,</li>
</ul>


<h2 id="branch">Making a branchpoint</h2>

<p>
A branchpoint is made such that new development can continue in parallel to
stabilisation and bugfixing.
</p>

<p>
Note: Before doing a branch ensure that basic build and <code>meson test</code>
testing is done and there are little to-no issues. Ideally all of those should
be tackled already.
</p>

<p>
Check if the version number is going to remain as, alternatively
<code> git mv docs/relnotes/{current,new}.html </code> as appropriate.
</p>

<p>
To setup the branchpoint:
</p>
<pre>
git checkout master # make sure we're in master first
git tag -s X.Y-branchpoint -m "Mesa X.Y branchpoint"
git checkout -b X.Y
git checkout master
$EDITOR VERSION # bump the version number
git commit -as
cp docs/relnotes/{X.Y,X.Y+1}.html # copy/create relnotes template
git commit -as
git push origin X.Y-branchpoint X.Y
</pre>

<p>
Now go to
<a href="https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/milestones" target="_parent">gitlab</a> and add the new Mesa version X.Y.
</p>

<p>
Check that there are no distribution breaking changes and revert them if needed.
For example: files being overwritten on install, etc. Happens extremely rarely -
we had only one case so far (see commit 2ced8eb136528914e1bf4e000dea06a9d53c7e04).
</p>

<p>
Proceed to <a href="#release">release</a> -rc1.
</p>


<h2 id="prerelease">Pre-release announcement</h2>

<p>
It comes shortly after outstanding patches in the respective branch are pushed.
Developers can check, in brief, what's the status of their patches. They,
alongside very early testers, are strongly encouraged to test the branch and
report any regressions.
</p>
<p>
It is followed by a brief period (normally 24 or 48 hours) before the actual
release is made.
</p>

<p>
Be aware to add a note to warn about a final release in a series, if
that is the case.
</p>

<h2>Terminology used</h2>

<ul><li>Nominated</ul>

<p>
Patch that is nominated but yet to to merged in the patch queue/branch.
</p>

<ul><li>Queued</ul>

<p>
Patch is in the queue/branch and will feature in the next release.
Barring reported regressions or objections from developers.
</p>

<ul><li>Rejected</ul>

<p>
Patch does not fit the
<a href="submittingpatches.html#criteria" target="_parent">criteria</a> and
is followed by a brief information. The release maintainer is human so if you
believe you've spotted a mistake do let them know.
</p>

<h2>Format/template</h2>
<pre>
Subject: [ANNOUNCE] Mesa X.Y.Z release candidate
To: mesa-announce@...
Cc: mesa-dev@...

Hello list,

The candidate for the Mesa X.Y.Z is now available. Currently we have:
 - NUMBER queued
 - NUMBER nominated (outstanding)
 - and NUMBER rejected patches

[If applicable:
Note: this is the final anticipated release in the SERIES series. Users are
encouraged to migrate to the NEXT_SERIES series in order to obtain future fixes.]

BRIEF SUMMARY OF CHANGES

Take a look at section "Mesa stable queue" for more information.


Testing reports/general approval
--------------------------------
Any testing reports (or general approval of the state of the branch) will be
greatly appreciated.

The plan is to have X.Y.Z this DAY (DATE), around or shortly after TIME.

If you have any questions or suggestions - be that about the current patch
queue or otherwise, please go ahead.


Trivial merge conflicts
-----------------------
List of commits where manual intervention was required.
Keep the authors in the CC list.

commit SHA
Author: AUTHOR

    COMMIT SUMMARY

    CHERRY PICKED FROM


For example:

commit 990f395e007c3204639daa34efc3049f350ee819
Author: Emil Velikov &lt;emil.velikov@collabora.com&gt;

    anv: automake: cleanup the generated json file during make clean

    (cherry picked from commit 8df581520a823564be0ab5af7dbb7d501b1c9670)


Cheers,
Emil


Mesa stable queue
-----------------

Nominated (NUMBER)
==================

AUTHOR (NUMBER):
      SHA     COMMIT SUMMARY

For example:

Dave Airlie (1):
      2de85eb radv: fix texturesamples to handle single sample case


Queued (NUMBER)
===============

AUTHOR (NUMBER):
      COMMIT SUMMARY
[If applicable:
Squashed with
      COMMIT SUMMARY]

For example:

Jonas Pfeil (1):
      ralloc: Make sure ralloc() allocations match malloc()'s alignment.
Squashed with
      ralloc: don't leave out the alignment factor


Rejected (NUMBER)
=================

AUTHOR (NUMBER):
      SHA     COMMIT SUMMARY

Reason: ...

For example:

Emil Velikov (1)
      a39ad18 configure.ac: honour LLVM_LIBDIR when linking against LLVM

Reason: The patch was reverted shortly after it was merged.
</pre>


<h2 id="release">Making a new release</h2>

<p>
These are the instructions for making a new Mesa release.
</p>

<h3>Get latest source files</h3>

<p>
Ensure the latest code is available - both in your local master and the
relevant branch.
</p>

<h3 id="basictesting">Perform basic testing</h3>

<p>
Most of the testing should already be done during the
<a href="#pickntest">cherry-pick</a> and
<a href="#prerelease">pre-announce</a> stages.
So we do a quick 'touch test'
</p>

<ul>
<li>meson dist
<li>scons (from release tarball)
<li>the produced binaries work
</ul>

<p>
  Here is one solution:
</p>

<pre>
__glxgears_cmd='glxgears 2&gt;&amp;1 | grep -v "configuration file"'
__es2info_cmd='es2_info 2&gt;&amp;1 | egrep "GL_VERSION|GL_RENDERER|.*dri\.so"'
__es2gears_cmd='es2gears_x11 2&gt;&amp;1 | grep -v "configuration file"'
test "x$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" != 'x' &amp;&amp; __old_ld="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`/test/usr/local/lib/:"${__old_ld}"
export LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH=`pwd`/test/usr/local/lib/dri/
export LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose
eval $__glxinfo_cmd
eval $__glxgears_cmd
eval $__es2info_cmd
eval $__es2gears_cmd
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=true
eval $__glxinfo_cmd
eval $__glxgears_cmd
eval $__es2info_cmd
eval $__es2gears_cmd
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=true
export GALLIUM_DRIVER=softpipe
eval $__glxinfo_cmd
eval $__glxgears_cmd
eval $__es2info_cmd
eval $__es2gears_cmd
# Smoke test DOTA2
unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH
test "x$__old_ld" != 'x' &amp;&amp; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$__old_ld" &amp;&amp; unset __old_ld
unset LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH
unset LIBGL_DEBUG
unset LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE
unset GALLIUM_DRIVER
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=`pwd`/test/usr/local/share/vulkan/icd.d/intel_icd.x86_64.json
steam steam://rungameid/570  -vconsole -vulkan
unset VK_ICD_FILENAMES
</pre>

<h3>Create release notes for the new release</h3>

<p>
The release notes are completely generated by the
<code>bin/gen_release_notes.py</code> script. Simply run this script before
bumping the version

The only thing left to do is add the sha256 sums.
</p>

<h3>Update version in file VERSION</h3>

<p>
Increment the version contained in the file VERSION at Mesa's top-level, then
commit this change.
</p>

<p>
Commit these changes and push the branch.
</p>

<pre>
git push origin HEAD
</pre>


<h3>Use the release.sh script from xorg <a href="https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/util/modular/">util-modular</a></h3>

<p>
Start the release process.
</p>

<pre>
# For the dist/distcheck, you may want to specify which LLVM to use:
# export LLVM_CONFIG=/usr/lib/llvm-3.9/bin/llvm-config
../relative/path/to/release.sh . # append --dist if you've already done distcheck above
</pre>

<p>
Pay close attention to the prompts as you might be required to enter your GPG
and SSH passphrase(s) to sign and upload the files, respectively.
</p>

<h3>Add the sha256sums to the release notes</h3>

<p>
Edit docs/relnotes/X.Y.Z.html to add the sha256sums as available in the mesa-X.Y.Z.announce template. Commit this change.
</p>

<h3>Back on mesa master, add the new release notes into the tree</h3>

<p>
Something like the following steps will do the trick:
</p>

<pre>
git cherry-pick -x X.Y~1
git cherry-pick -x X.Y
</pre>

<p>Then run the <code>./bin/post_verison.py X.Y.Z</code>, where X.Y.Z is the
version you just made. This will updated docs/relnotes.html and
docs/index.html. Remove docs/release-calendar.html. Then commit and push:
</p>

<pre>
git commit -as -m "docs: update calendar, add news item and link release notes for X.Y.Z"
git push origin master X.Y
</pre>


<h2 id="announce">Announce the release</h2>

<p>
Use the generated template during the releasing process.
</p>

<p>
Again, pay attention to add a note to warn about a final release in a
series, if that is the case.
</p>


<h2 id="gitlab">Update gitlab issues</h2>

<p>
Parse through the bugreports as listed in the docs/relnotes/X.Y.Z.html
document. If there's outstanding action, close the bug referencing the commit
ID which addresses the bug and mention the Mesa version that has the fix.
</p>

<p>
Note: the above is not applicable to all the reports, so use common sense.
</p>


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